Coffee - a habit passed over generations
Coffee in the Rodriguez family has been trickled down because it is a tradition and a livelihood choice. Byron fondly recalls that it was his grandfather that planted coffee back in the days. It was financially and ecologically viable. His grandfather raised his family by coffee farming and then his father did the same. When they were teenagers, his father gave him and his 4 brothers each a piece of land for coffee farming. Even though there is hope for coffee farmers to earn a good price for their produce, the socio-economic situation in Nicaragua limits this dream. Many factors ranging from climate change, lack of labor, immigation to neighboring countries for better opportunities, pests, diseases and low prices deeply impact the motivation to continue producing coffee. Yet Byron, his brothers and their father are persistent to not stop this habit called coffee that has been empowering them economically across generations. His farm is located on the Honduran border and when we visited he showed us the outpost that the Nicaraguan army made on the highest part of his land, a reminder of the tumultuous history of this region. Byron is more than a coffee farmer, he is a mechanic and an inventor. It was his homemade coffee pulping setup that he showed Lennart in 2015 that inspired many other farmers worldwide in later origin trips: more than six mechanical wet-milling processes are connected to a single diesel generator in an ingenious way. The same ingenuity went into his coffee roasters - which he is famous for in the region. He builds them from scratch and sells them, providing him with more income than coffee. Byron’s coffee was becoming known in the Netherlands before our cooperation was forcedly stopped.
We are glad, this inventor can re-invent himself again through this revived cooperation.
CULTIVARS
Red and yellow Catuai, Java, Pacamara
elevation
1250-1586 meters
NOTABLE
They grow coffee in harmony with the environment. They use machetes to clean their coffee trees and don’t use any chemicals. All coffee is shade grown so the area is reforested. They do tissue management, it is a sanitary pruning by removing the dead part of the plant and leaving the living part to regenerate. They take care of the flora and fauna surrounding the natural reserve mountain in this region.
PROCESSING
Natural: Coffee cherries are harvested at their ripest point, selected and naturally processed. They are then driven to Santa Lucila in ventilated boxes, for dry milling, sorting and exporting. During the season, Silvio sometimes makes around two round trips from his estate, to the Drymill. This is a long process, since not so many boxes fit on the truck and the dirt road is bumpy and complicated to drive.
TASTIFY™ CUPPING NOTES
2024 LANDED SAMPLES REPORT
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The price you pay for Byron Rodriguez Anaerobic maracaturra - p/kg. This is agreed directly with Byron.
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Here the farm gate is inclusive of the all the costs incurred by the farmer to also deliver the coffees to the mill. Depending on whether the farmer owns a mill or drying facility, we have facilitated a contract in cooperation with our farmer friends and exporting partners to invoke the rest of services needed to get the green coffee ready for export. All the farmers in the Nicaraguan ensemble are paid a fixed price for their coffees (Washed/Natural). Farmers are paid premium price for their experimental processing methods.
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Santa Lucila is a dry milling and export facility. It offers various services including milling, grain pro & jute bag purchase and designing, exporting the coffees between Nicaragua and Netherlands. Depending on the services required by the farmer, Santa Lucila is flexible in it’s arrangement. Byron requires all the services offered by Santa Lucila.
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The cost to ship from port of Ocotal to Rotterdam
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Average financing cost owed to (mostly social) lenders. This ensures immediate payment to the farmers when the coffee leaves the farm or port. This is also includes stock surchage, storage fee and customs
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A standard TSU premium on all coffees designated exclusively to accelerate farmers’ own regenerative agriculture project. Read more about the regenerative projects done by Byron here (Link coming soon).
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This Side Up compensation for spending time and resources importing this coffee. Our work includes year-round contact with producers, managing export, shipping, import, warehousing, grading, sampling, finding and keeping roasting partners for Byron. € 1,22 is This Side Up’s Model 1 markup. For a full overview of our modular margin construction, see the Trade Models page
Contact Byron Rodriguez
Byron speaks only Spanish and can be directly contacted via telephone or on Whatsapp.
TEL : +505 8961 9581
Photo gallery
You may use these videos freely to promote Byron’s coffee amongst your customers.
